


In Another Life

by Ims0s0rry



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Attempt at Historical Accuracy, F/F, Gen, Reincarnation, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 13:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8982784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ims0s0rry/pseuds/Ims0s0rry
Summary: Alternative Title: Five Times Emma and Regina Met as Strangers, and One Time They Became Something MoreI love the idea of soulmates, but Robin was just so meh. So let's have a Swan Queen rendition instead, with multiple ethnicities because fuck ouat's preoccupation with white people and multiple historical periods because I'm a huge nerd.





	

  1. **Mongol Empire, 1484**



In this life, Regina has not suffered. She was abandoned at the doors of a monastery as a newborn and raised with kindly nuns, who taught her how to live in the moment and let ill feelings pass through her like water. For the past few decades now, she has been meandering her way throughout the empire, traveling on foot to various Buddhist establishments and living off the people's goodwill. Her back is hunched with age now, but her deepest wrinkles are her laugh lines and the creases in the corners of her eyes.

There are fewer people in the craggy mountains of this area, and therefore a lower chance of filling her alms bowl, but she doesn't really mind. She has always come across people who were willing to share before, and she sees no reason why she won't now, even with the poor harvest. It is late afternoon when she crests a steep hill. Before her is a simple cottage — a hut, really — with goats grazing at the weeds outside and sounds of screeching children bouncing around inside. She wonders if she's happened upon a school when the door bangs open and out toddles a small girl, who starts to load her arms with twigs from a pile of firewood.

"Good afternoon," Regina calls from the road. "How is your day faring?"

Emma startles, staring at her with wide eyes and clutching the wood to her chest. She takes in Regina's saffron robes, her shaved head, her alms bowl, but doesn't reply.

She smiles and takes a few steps towards her, but still keeping a fair distance away. Even from here, she can see that the girl is far too small for her age, her cheeks stripped of baby fat. "Hello."

"You're a woman."

"Yes."

"What are you doing here? There aren't any nuns around here."

"I'm walking to a temple close to here. Do you know where it is?"

Emma frowns. "My family goes sometimes, on special occasions. It's a day's ride from here in that direction." She points vaguely to the east. "I don't know how long it would take to walk."

"Thank you. That's very helpful information."

She points to Regina's bowl. "Are you looking for something to eat?"

"Yes, if you could spare anything."

Emma lays the kindling on the ground and approaches her to take her bowl. "We have some leftover stew but I'll try to find something without any meat in it. I would ask Mama, but she's busy with the babies." In this life, Emma grows up relatively well-cared for, but lost in the crowd of her siblings. It's different yet the same.

"Thank you."

She comes back with lukewarm farina and some hard wheat biscuits. "I'm sorry," she says, her face reddening. "This was all we had besides salted meat."

"It's more than enough. Have you eaten yet? Would you like to keep me company for a bit?"

Emma glances back at her home, where she can still hear the shrieking of the twins, and nods, eyeing the visitor warily. They sit at opposite sides of a bench, Regina spooning small bits of porridge into her mouth as Emma gnaws at a hunk of goat jerky. They don't talk, just sit and enjoy the luxury of idleness.

"I appreciate you splitting what little you have with a complete stranger, even in these trying times." She puts her hands together and bows her head. "May you be blessed in this life and lifetimes to come."

Emma blinks at her. "You too, I guess." She stares after her as Regina continues up the winding, rocky path to her destination.

They never see each other again.

  1. **New Spain, 1576**



Emma is going to die today or tomorrow. She knows this as surely as she knows that the sky is blue and ripe mangoes are sweet. The sick have spilled out of the shoddy church, dozens of her brethren lying in ordered rows on the ground, all delirious with fever and pain and dysentery and blood. This is nothing new. Illness has been sweeping through their ranks periodically combined with the steel weapons of the Spanish for years now, wearing them thinner and thinner. No one knows what to do, except to wait it out.

She coughs violently, moaning when it wakes the sharp, shooting cramps in her stomach, and paws at the blood dribbling from her nose and mouth. Two men lay a teenage boy next to her, his skin yellow with jaundice and sporting this disease's distinctive lumps on his neck and face. When they leave, a teenage girl kneels next to him. She's sick too, starting to trickle blood from her eyes and nose, but her case doesn't seem to be as dire as Emma's or her...

"Your brother?" Emma rasps, gesturing to the boy's supine form.

"My cousin," Regina says, not looking up from his face. "He's all I have left."

She laughs, more of a wheeze than anything. "I know that feeling. Well, no, I don't. I'm the last to go. My husband, my children, my brothers and sisters and their families. All dead."

Regina doesn't say anything. She reaches out and takes her hand. No matter how broken she is, there is always a spark of kindness left in her.

Emma raises an eyebrow. "You sure that's a good idea?"

"I'm succumbing too. There's no use in distancing myself from it anymore."

"I'm gonna vomit. A lot."

"Nothing I haven't acclimated myself to."

"Okay."

There's not much to say between fits of bloodied coughing and pleas for water and cries of pain, but Regina tries. She talks about her days working on a creole hacienda, the works of Ruiz de Alarcon, and her thoughts on the Spanish One God as being just another god in the Aztec pantheon. Emma listens, squeezing Regina's hand occasionally to prompt her to continue when her voice softens. After a while, the words stop making sense altogether, blurring together in soft tones that lull her into unconsciousness.

Regina's still holding her hand when Emma breathes out one final time, and stills.

  1. **Kingdom of Keladi, 1673**



This Regina has not been beaten into submission her entire childhood, so she still has enough fire to defy her parents when they try to force her into marriage. It's an immensely difficult decision. She does love her parents, and she's her parents only child, but she isn't willing to sacrifice her independence for the rest of her life to the whims of an unknown man.

So she takes her father's straight razor to shave her head, thickens her eyebrows with kohl, uses ochre to strengthen her jaw, binds her chest. She frowns when she sees her reflection for the first time. She can't do anything about the lack of the Adam's apple or her own wide hips but she thinks that she could pass for a man. It'll have to do.

She volunteers to fight for the queen when Aurangzeb threatens invasion.

There's something thrilling about deceiving men into thinking that she's one of them. They're not quite so careful around her, their crudeness is pronounced instead of ambiguous. Despite going against everything she's been taught growing up, she manages to blend in, even make some friends.

She should've known better. She's only a scared girl playing at war.

All her newfound friends are reckless romantics, charging into the midst of enemy lines for a chance at glory and promptly mown down. She'd grown up hearing tales of noble heroes, singlehandedly defeating demons and capturing scoundrels and shaking some fear into them. Moral, level-headed idols to look up to. Her first battle absolves her of that notion. There's nothing grand about half-grown boys crying for mercy or their mothers or the stink of fear and viscera baking in the tropical sun. There's the sharp cracks of muskets and blasts of cannons and a dazed, numbing stupor combined with constant teeth-grinding tension. And in a twisted way, she likes it. She could do without the gore, honestly, but she'd be lying if she said there wasn't something particularly rousing about killing another person.

The thought troubles her, but she doesn't have much time to dwell on it. While an enemy soldier is fumbling to reload, she slashes viciously at him with her one of her sickle-knives and uses her momentum to cut through his companion as he's raising his gun. It's not the power that comes from ending a life. She's been a devout vegetarian since the age of six because killing the family chickens made her sob for days. Of course, here she is now, dispatching actual people with only small qualms. Another man lunges at her, his sword raised high. She parries, snarling, and twists before he can overpower her, plunging one of her blades through his neck. But as she pulls it back, she notices the lack of body hair, the gentle brow, the delicate hands that come up to press against the gaping wound in vain.

Another woman.

The realization jars her for a moment. But then there's another war cry and she shelves it for later as she works on more immediate threats. It isn't until much later, when she's laying in her hammock, listening to the snores of the other survivors, that she lets herself mull it over. She wonders if the other woman was running from her previous life as well, before she disguised herself as a man. Did the others in her regiment accept her as one of their own as well, or was she a loner? Was she as enthralled with bloodshed as Regina herself or was she sick by all the senseless murder? She keeps seeing her surprise as she crumples, her fingers curling around her throat as rivulets of blood seep between them.

It takes long hours before she falls into a fitful doze.

  1. **Kingdom of Dahomey, 1726**



Emma waves away her grandchildren once they finish stocking the fruit stand. Her arthritis may be acting up but she's still perfectly capable of hawking their goods, thank you very much. They scamper back home to tend to the soursop shrubs, shrieking and jostling each other on the cart as it rattles down the well worn path.

She settles onto her stool, prodding at the overhanging canvas with her cane to the right so it gets the sun out of her eyes, and surveys the marketplace with interest. The fishermen have already brought in their catches, their wives calling to each other as they strip the fish with quick, sure movements. Goats bleat and pull at their tethers. Chickens squawk and puff themselves up in their cages. There are sweets and shawls and rugs all to be found here, if one can navigate the convoluted twists and turns of the alleys in between the stands.

People are starting to trickle in now as the sun starts to rise proper, the women clustering about to exchange gossip as their little ones run amok. She spots a young woman who seems a bit lost as she wanders down the aisles. "You there! You're looking for something wholesome? Look no further. Crack open this lumpy thing and taste its sweet, mild flavor. Got a bad cough? Chew some of these leaves. Use the bark as an insecticide or a dye. It's basically a wonder wrapped up in a fruit." Some of the claims are dubious, but if it's one thing Emma knows how to do, it's stretch the truth.

Regina still seems unconvinced.

"Tell you what. Buy one and I'll add another for free. Just because you're new around here."

"How could you tell?"

"You look terrified to be in a crowd this big."

She smiles ruefully. "I lived further north but I just got married and my husband's a slaver. Obviously he needed to be closer to the coast to trade with the Portuguese."

"Congratulations!"

Regina's smile distorts into a grimace. It's always been hard for her to hide her true feelings.

Emma notices her discomfort and changes the topic. Can't scare the customers away. "So how are you finding life by the sea?"

"The climate is drier than I thought it would be, honestly. But the ocean itself is stunning. I'd love to be a diver for mollusks and spend all day in the water."

They make more small talk, and not long after that, Regina leaves with the two custard apples. Emma sees her occasionally after that, catching up in that polite way casual acquaintances do, but they never become friends.

And then one day, Emma realizes that she hasn't seen her in months. Time passes, months turning into years, and sometimes she'll wonder offhandedly whatever became of the new bride with the doleful eyes. She doesn't worry too much though; Regina was just another customer.

  1. **Ottoman Empire, 1876**



Emma tucks a curl of hair back out of her face and subtly adjusts her headscarf as she squints at the inscription of the base of a skeleton, twisted in apparent agony. The gallery is well-lit by the high windows, but it's too early and the angle of the sun is off, throwing the plaque into shadow. Even by museum standards, it's quiet. Of course, not a lot of people visit museums in the morning.

Which is why she jumps when a soft voice says, "That's my favorite piece in the entire building."

She whirls around, a hand on her breakneck heartbeat, to find a middle-aged woman holding a broom and smiling at her. A sudden onset of vertigo makes her stumble, her ragged breath loud in her ears as the weight of centuries seeps through her veins. Regina surges forward, broom forgotten, arms outstretched to catch her if she falls but not yet touching her.

"Are you alright?"

"I...yes, sorry. I don't know what came over me."

Regina purses her lips. "Have you eaten yet?"

"I had a hard-boiled egg this morning."

"That's hardly enough." She tuts. "Here, have an apple."

"Oh no, that's quite okay. I'm feeling better."

"Take it, dear."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you." The crunch of biting into the apple echoes throughout the empty hallways.

"What are you doing here on a school day?" It's been decades since reforms dictated children be schooled, but it's still a stop-and-go process to get the masses educated.

"I'm on a field trip...?"

"Try again." She crosses her arms. "I know your class is most likely covering how to iron properly or the correct way to make Turkish coffee."

True enough. "I don't know. I was bored of it all. This seems more educational in any case." She nods toward the skeleton. Emma has never taken well to being told what to do.

Regina hums and turns to face the showcase. "Carthage used to be a Roman city, you know. There was a battle here around the year 147. He was a soldier that died there."

"Why is this your favorite? Why not the Punic or Byzantine or another one of the Roman artifacts? I've heard the Lady of Carthage is world famous."

"Yes, of course. All the mosaics and architectural ruins and the jewelry are lovely, but I keep finding myself drawn to this one. It reminds me of one of Ovid's quotes. Forgive me, I can't remember the exact Latin phrasing but it translates to something like be patient and tough and someday this pain will be useful to you."

Emma blinks in bewilderment. It's at once a personal and very vague statement. She wants to ask what sort of pain this stranger is hoarding but she doesn't think she can pull it off with enough tact. The silence nags at her, but doesn't seem to bother her companion, who's still gazing serenely at the bleached bones. She's still trying to figure out something to say when a distant clock tower announces a new hour.

"I'd better get back to cleaning," Regina says, shaking herself out of her stupor. "It was nice meeting you."

"You too. Thanks for the apple."

Regina grins at her and exits the room.

Emma leaves the museum not long after.

They do not meet again.

  1. **Storybrooke, 2011**



An eight-hour round trip ferrying her son home and back is one hell of a way to spend her birthday, Emma thinks to herself as she slows to a stop in front of the imposing mayor's home. She's not new to long trips in the Bug by any means, but it's been awhile since she's driven more than an hour outside Boston. Just one of the perks of being her own boss.

"Henry? Henry! Are you okay? Where've you been? What happened?" His mom drops to her knees to hold him.

He tolerates her embrace with a mulish scowl. "I found my real mom!" he shouts before he runs into the house.

Regina seems to notice her for the first time. There's a fearful, wary look in her eyes as rises to her feet. "You're Henry's birth mother?"

There's a quick flash of deja vu, like a dream half-remembered upon waking. There's something about this woman that reminds her of someone she once knew if she glances at her out of the corner of her eye. She shakes it off and manages a sheepish grin. "Hi."

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this shouldn't have taken a month to write, but I was busy fact-checking every little thing and probably still got a bunch wrong because wikipedia isn't infallible. If you catch anything or are horribly offended by something, please leave me a comment and I'll do my best to correct it.


End file.
